Vermonters for Health Care Freedom to push for repeal of purchasing mandate for Vermont's new health insurance marketplace

Jul. 3, 2013

Written by

Free Press Staff Writer

Based on the assertion by a congressional oversight committee that Vermont law wrongly restricts individuals and small businesses to shopping for health insurance on an under-development online marketplace beginning this fall, Darcie Johnston of Vermonters for Health Care Freedom wants Gov. Peter Shumlin to call a special legislative session to repeal the requirement.

“Why wouldn’t they want to fix this?” Johnston asks. Although her organization’s focus is primarily on trying to stop a government-financed health care system from becoming reality in Vermont, she said, “We are going to take some time and work on getting this message out.”

Such a special session “is very unlikely,” House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, said Wednesday. He suggested the assertion of the illegality of Vermont’s participation requirement by the Republican controlled congressional oversight committee was “pure politics.”

House Republican Leader Don Turner of Milton said he wasn’t going to ask for a special session because he didn’t have the votes to change the outcome. He noted, too, that Republicans had raised concerns about limiting the choices of individuals and small businesses during deliberations on Vermont’s exchange legislation in 2012.

“We argued that until we were blue in the face,” he said. “My main message to Vermonters is Vermont had a choice when we set up the exchange.”

Turner said his focus now is on the future as the new marketplace opens for business. “I just want to make sure Vermonters have affordable insurance come January.

The Shumlin administration disputes the assertion by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that a provision cited in a June 28 letter to Mark Larson, commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access, applies to states setting up their own exchanges.

As part of its oversight, the congressional committee also requested “all documents and communications referring or relating to the Vermont Exchange’s proposal to restrict or prohibit the purchase of health insurance coverage outside the Exchange. The committee requests that you provide this information, in electronic format, for the period of March 23, 2010 to the present, as soon as possible, but no later than 5 p.m. on July 12.”

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“We are currently looking into the appropriate response,” Lunge said. “We are talking with our attorney.”

U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., suggested his congressional colleagues on the oversight committee shouldn’t put obstacles in the path of states like Vermont “that are making an energetic effort to implement health care reform.”

She said she will also raise concerns about the underlying weakness of the 2010 federal health reforms — commonly called Obamacare.

She pointed Wednesday to the decision of the Obama administration on Tuesday to postpone for a year a mandatory reporting requirement for businesses with more than 50 employees and the penalty provision if businesses didn’t offer insurance.

“I think it us an indication this whole program is not ready for prime time,” Johnston said.

Lunge countered that this delay wouldn’t have a big impact in Vermont.

Lunge said she remained confident Vermont Health Connect would be ready to launch on Oct. 1 as required.

Betsy Bishop, president of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, said her focus is on the looming transition to the exchange, not on past battles over whether businesses and individuals should have had the option to buy outside the new marketplace.

She acknowledged she would have preferred an open market, at least in the early days after the launch of exchange, but suggested the congressional committee’s late-in-the-process challenge of Vermont’s purchasing requirement was likely “a political move at the DC level.”

She applauded the Obama administration’s decision to take more time to improve the reporting process for bigger businesses. “The delay will allow employers already doing the right thing not to have very onerous, complicated reporting requirement to say they are doing what we want them to do.”

She agreed with Lunge that Vermont controls the development of the state’s exchange. “They are being very transparent,” she said of state officials. “So far all systems look like they are moving in a positive direction.”